Last weekend i was able to get out to Northern Ca to try my luck on some hogs. I met my good friend Shane at his home for a couple days. We were fired up to say the least. I had traded a hunt with Alex(dawnpatrol) and was headed out for a couple days.
Shane and I arrived at 5:30 to meet Alex and head to the ranch. The intro was short as we were ready to hunt. On the drive in we got aquainted and I knew that Alex was going to fit in with Shane and I just fine.
We bailed out of the truck and got geared up and started heading to the crossings that Alex had scouted previously. As the sun started to light the world, I could not believe the hog sign. I was also treated to redwoods towering over me.
We didn't see or hear anything the first couple hours, so we hooked up and went to "jump beds".
Since I was the only one in our party who hasn't killed a hog, Alex let me take the lead. Now I was expecting to sneak around huge redwood stumps hoping to catch hogs bedded. We did that the first two, then Alex showed us some burnt out stumps that he said the hogs liked to bed in. He told me to sneak up to the log, then draw back and hurry and peek over the bank! :eek:
Are you kidding me?! Well he wasn't, and lucky for me there were no hogs in there, the only escape would be through my legs.
Here is a pic of Alex doing the bed jump the next morning.
Alex also showed us the mother of all hog wallows, It's too bad they weren't using it at the time.
The pic doesn't do it justice.
We then headed back to the truck to regroup and do a little stump shooting.
The rest of the day, was spent hiking through some of the steepest country I have been on, and I have hunted elk in ID. Alex would hike Shane and I up one hill to jump a place where he had seen hogs before, and when that didn't work, he would hike us over to another place. We did this until late afternoon. The last valley we looked at had more sign.
There was fresh rooting in this little valley.
We spent the rest of the evening sitting various trails. But no hogs were seen.